Passed RHCSA & RHCE Exam with Good Marks

This New year 2014 would have not have been better for me as on 2nd January 2014 I got a gift from Red hat and that in the form of Red hat certification results. I got an email from the Red hat team that I have earned mine EX200 & EX300 Certification and my certificates were also attached with the mail. I scored 90% marks in both the exams and cleared my RHCSA & RHCE exam in first attempt only.

I gave both my RHCSA & RHCE exam on 31st December 2013 on the gap 1 hour and being truthful, I have opted for a double attempt for safe side and single exam cost more. Don’t think that It ruined my New year party as my exam was on 31st December. After my exam I partied all night as from past 1 month I was busy studying for a Red hat exam on my extra time. 🙂

RHCSA & RHCE Exam Fees

In India I think Red hat exam fees are low as compared to other countries. I paid a total of Rs.22,500 with taxes. For RHCSA and RHCE exam fees are Rs.10,000 each and rest is tax.

You can check the latest fees detail of the Red hat exam at an Official Red hat site too.

My Preparation for RHCSA & RHCE Exam

I started taking a weekend class from April 2013 from one of the local institute in our area and was able to complete my course around October. You must be thinking why it took 7 months to complete a 3 month course?

First of all I was taking weekend classes so I was getting only 2 days in a week to learn Linux, secondly due to some of my classmates, which have a habit of coming late into the classroom, make my 2 hour class to only 1:30 her class, and last but not the least I have a very old habit of bunking classes from my Engineering days. 🙂

Now I am sure you know why it took too long to complete my course, so don’t ask again in your comments.

I will advise you to consider this book for your study too, as this book is easy to understand and there are lots of questions after every chapter to give you a good understanding and also helps from interview point of view.

Tips for RHCSA & RHCE

1. Practice, Practice, Practice!!: I will request you to practice for all the topics given in the Red hat official syllabus for RHCSA and RHCE. Even after doing lots of practice, I missed one command and was not able to score 100%. Practice more for LVM, HTTP, SCSI, kernel upgrade, etc. These are very good topic to learn for your career and organization point of view.

2. Read every question properly and use the same naming convention as given on the exam.

3. Use either IP tables or TCP wrapper in exam. You can use either. Use whatever you are compatible with.

4. Reboot your system wherever necessary and manage time carefully.

5. Last but not the least, don’t panic and give your exam confidently.

Hope this help in your RHCSA & RHCE exam. Please don’t ask any question in the comments which I have faced in the exam as I will not be able to give answers for it. I have signed Non disclosure agreement (NDA) with Red hat. You can ask any topic of syllabus if you are having any confusion, I can help with that. Good luck for your Red hat exam.

298 Comments

mahesh

Hai sir,

I am Mahesh from Hydrabad , I have knowledge on Rhel 6 and I am planing to do redhat certification right now they are conducting on 7th version, i don’t have knowledge on 7th version. What I have to do please suggest me.

I will suggest you to first understand RHEL 7 and check syllabus for it. You will have to study hard for RHEL 7 exam as now this exam is more lengthy. Study and practice hard and then only give exam on redhat 7.

May 25, 2015

Anjali

Hi,
I am currently studying redhat linux. I just want to know that does the exam questions include objective and questions like essay or only machine test are asking?

If you are working in UNIX track then it will be good for you. What is your current role in project?

May 9, 2015

Sashank Jakkamreddy

Hi Sir,

I have been working as a windows system administrator form last 2.5 Years. Now I am planning to do certification on RHCSA and RHCE . I am just a beginner in linux platform. Can i get any advice’s from you. And Kindly suggest me any of the best institutes in Bangalore.

As a beginner, you can find many helpful tutorial online and can also refer Redhat books. I want to ask, why you want to switch to Linux as you are already working as a Windows Admin?

Sorry I have no idea about Bangalore institute. You will have to do your own research.

April 27, 2015

sahank Jakkamreddy

Hi sir,

I am 25 now..I am not satisfying with my windows admin job..I just wanted to do challenging stuff.and also Linux admins salaries very much higher than windows admin. Only these two reasons made me to do this.am I correct? If I am wrong please guide me.

Windows platform too has challenging stuff and I doubt if you change to Linux all your previous experience will be zero. So take decision wisely. As far as salary is concerned, I think both should be have same salary or their will be small difference.

It’s up to you so decide wisely.

April 29, 2015

gourav

Hi
I want to give exam for rhcsa and rhce on rhel7. which books I can follow apart from the official books provided by red hat for rhel7, i am not finding books.

It sound very cool that you are going to prepare for RHCSA and RHCE exam while working. Though you haven’t mentioned any specific location in Delhi but I will suggest Network Nuts.

Or you can take education from any institute nearest to your home. It all depends upon your preparation. Good Luck/Let me know if you need any further help.

April 6, 2015

Raj

Hi Pawan,
First thing, Very informative website i would say..

I want to prepare for RHCSA as I am working as Linux admin now, not able to take time.. so decided to go for professional training for certification like a week dedicated training, which Institute would you recommend for Delhi NCR there are many like CMS, Koeing [V.Expensive], New Horizone, and Network-nuts South Delhi.
(I reside in Ghaziabad- but ready to travel for a good inst.)

As you suggest Network Nuts South Delhi campus i guess, the there also are many faculty’s : Alok Srivastava,Deepak Rajeev, Supriya srivastava etc.

Yes, if you are working in Linux environment you should go for RHCSA exam. There are many institute in Delhi-NCR and I am not sure about all. I have heard good feedback for Network-Nuts.

I think Network-Nuts also have institute in Noida and that would be closure to Ghaziabad I guess. Let me know if you need any help. Good luck !

May 3, 2015

Rohit

Hi Pawan,
I have been working on Linux environment for about 1 year in an MNC(which is the overall exp I have in total). I am in a testing team. Not dealt much with isci mounting and all that.
Can you suggest should I go for RHCSA + RHCE or RHCSA only. I am planning to join an institute for preparation.
Still confused if I should go for both exams or 1 of them.
Please suggest, thanks in advance.

As per my experience MNC Linux team don’t have to deal with ISCSI in most of the cases. Storage is directly assigned by storage team. If you are planning to do training institute then I will suggest to take both the exams.

March 28, 2015

SHAHZAD

Hello sir, I gave my reattempt of RHCE 7, my exam was good but i have problem in ISCSI Question mount is perfectly but when i reboot my server site my system was not restart and i score 56 marks and last time i score 178 but last time it work on iscsi only server site ..and my friend also face same problem. If u have any idea about this so please tell me.

Can you tell what steps you have done for ISCSI, so that I can find were you have done wrong.

March 24, 2015

Pradeep Pandey

Don’t forget to enable and restart “iscsi and iscsid” service on client side.

March 24, 2015

Bharath

Hi Pradeep…How did you prepared for the exam, which materials have you used?

March 25, 2015

Pradeep Pandey

I had joined very good Institute “Network-Nuts” which is located in South Delhi. But make sure , your teacher would be either Sachin Sir or Deepak Sir.

March 28, 2015

Pradeep Pandey

RHCE and RHCSA on RHEL7 exam has been passed by me in 1st attempt only on 26 Feb.
Sir I want to know, When you got gift from RedHat.
Is there any company in India, who is currently working on RHEL7.
I have not got job yet.

They send gift after 1 quarter. There will be companies working in RHEL 7, I don’t have much Idea about it.

Companies slowly adapt new major change, so it may take time. Keep trying for jobs, there are many companies hiring Linux system admin.

March 19, 2015

Pradeep Pandey

I got jobs in two companies but both were offering me post of product support ..
salary was too small so i refused the offer …but no company is offering Linux Admin post to fresher…It is the scenario or i should wait for some good job..

If you are a fresher then it will surely take time and for time being you can start job from small organization.

March 19, 2015

Pradeep Pandey

Ok Sir thanks ..

March 19, 2015

Pardeep

I was not able to clear RHCE in 1st chance. I reboot the client and server after ISCSI question, client was fine and it was mount correctly but server not come in running state. I use LVM partition for iscsi might be I use standard primary partition, please advice.

Sorry for your RHCE exam Pardeep. Did you gave your exam on RHEL 6 or 7? You can assign LVM and RAW disk as per your preference but I prefer raw disk and then formatting it at client. I would also like to know what entries you entered in your FSTAB file for permanent change.

March 16, 2015

SHAHZAD

Hello sir,

I am shahzad from Delhi, I gave the RHEL 7 Exam200, EX-300 but i cant clear 2nd exam its my 1st attempt sir please gives any kind of advice or any kind of practice book if available in market am very thankful to you .

Can you please let me know in RHCE exam where you face problem. You can also directly email me your query.

March 6, 2015

Ajinkya Murtey

Please guide me for red hat certification since I don’t know anything about red hat please tell me path that from where should I start each and everything regarding red hat and what kind of initial knowledge is required to go for red hat certification.

chrisman

There are around 24-25 questions in RHCSA and some also have sub part. So manager time well. Good Luck for your exam.

February 8, 2015

chrisman

Thanks a lot for your answer. Can i ask something more because that’s is really confusing me.
At the exam do we have the ISO (mounted or not that’s of course not a problem). I mean if it’s locally at our disposal.

I am asking because i didn’t understand until now. Does the virtual machine that we will have is like in a mess and we have to do the tasks to recover it if i could say? or it’s like from scratch like we would make just an install.

The question is about the yum repository. For example if the rpms are on an ftp server then obviously the ftp client must be pre-installed. Could anyone help?

You can ask examiner to reset your virtual machine back to original state.

There are many methods to configure YUM and FTP is not the only solution. Try to learn other methods.You can be asked to configure YUM from any method. Hope that helps.

February 15, 2015

sreerag

Hi Pawan,
Actually I completed the RHCE course in rhel6 and I am going for the global certification exam in rhel7 but I preparing for the exam in rhel6. Can I pass that exam. Whats your experience, I think you attended the exam in rhel7.

No, I have not attended RHEL 7 exam, I am certified on RHEL6. If you are giving exam on RHEL7, then I will request you to prepare accordingly. There are many changes in RHEL 7 syllabus, so get trained on RHEL7, though RHEL 6 training will help you in better understanding RHEL7.

Let me know if you still have doubts.

January 29, 2015

Kumar

Hi Pawan,

I don’t have much experience on Linux. But I’m interested to take RHCSE/RHCE exams to advance my skills. Will I be able to clear the exams through self study??

That totally depend upon your interest and your practice. If you are determine that you have to pass RHCSA and RHCE on first attempt, then I am sure you will be able to clear it.

Let me know if you need any help.

January 28, 2015

pranab

Hi Pawan I want to give RHCSA exam in February 2015, however I am confused about the real test environment. According to RedHat you will be given a physical machine with RHEL already installed and have to install RHEL in VM on that physical machine. Dose RedHat provide RHEL DVD during the exam? if not then how can we install RHEL in VM? Again on the base machine does we have to create yum repository and ftp server? Access to RHN and internet will not be there in the exam and also if RHEL DVD is not provided then how can we create yum repository/server, ftp server and install RHEL VM. I am totally confused. Please Advice.

First of all install CentOS as it is similar to Redhat and then get some good books for your reference and check Redhat syllabus for RHCE and RHCSA. Do every topic and I am sure you can clear the exam. Let me know if you face any issue in any topic.

January 22, 2015

siddhesh

Thanks you admin, such good info are you providing us for better preparation of red hat exam. We take opportunity learn something new from self practices, so thank you ones again.

issbaj

I used all the 3 books mentioned above but mainly I used RHCSA/RHCE Red Hat Linux Cert guide by Michael Jang and Enterprise Linux® 6 Administration by Sander van Vugt

January 4, 2015

KALYAN

Hi pawan, i am a fresher i want to know what is the basic knowledge one should have to join RHCE training and earn RHCE. I mean what concepts, i want u to be more clear because i am new to this.
I am hoping u will explain in full detail.

You can start with zero knowledge about Linux. I really mean it. If you are taking RHCE training then they will tell you whole thing. You can yourself do some basic learning from internet if yo are interested.

Laycon

Thanks Pawan for amazing info you are sharing. I just started learning RHEL6 with no background in Linux. Though I have someone putting me through the basics but my goal is to take exams RHCSA and RHCE before I start working to boost my chance. Please from your experience, how many weeks of study do you think will be enough before taking the exam. and how many hours per day would you recommend?

I would recommend you to take exam after 3 months of study and 2-3 hours would be sufficient. Thanks for your wishes.

December 18, 2014

karthick

hi,
This is karthick from TN and i have planned to do RHCE course in linux 7. so, please tell me after completing RHCE what are those companies i can apply as a fresher. please list out the companies names.
also i am looking for job..is RHCE is a good choice or not?

That is good that you are planning to do RHCE on RHEL 7. Depends upon company to company. generally company want experience Linux Admins. Sorry O don’t have company names.

December 12, 2014

Harinder

Hello sir, firstly congratulations for your success sir I want to ask technical question I have a dual boot system with win7 and Linux 6th. I was doing topic of Linux how to recover main grub configuration file. In grub config i set the default value 1 but it should have been 0 and now my system starts with win7 it doesn’t start with linux and tell me how I can fix bootloader in this situation because I want that my system should start with Linux plz help me thanks

Thanks Harinder. First of all, I think you should have used some virtual operating system for your testing, as Redhat takes test now on KVM and it is always safe to do that.

Your system should give you option to choose your operating system. Though I have not faced such issue. I will suggest to you to press ‘Esc’ at start of BIOS, and then F9. It should show you boot options.

December 12, 2014

Tobin

I have already passed RHCSA in redhat 6 .Now i want to take RHCE certification which one will you prefer redhat6 or redhat 7 is better .How much is this exam fee for it .I already trained rhce in redhat 6 is any difference in questions or syllabus of redhat7 & redhat6.

I will prefer Redhat 6 only as you have already passed RHCSA in 6. Its upto you and depend upon your choice you can take any exam. You can check syllabus at Redhat official website and compare it.

December 1, 2014

Senbagaraman

Hello Mr.Pawan,
I’m in second year of BE-CSE course in Hosur(Tamilnadu).I have some experience in Linux Operating System for the past 2 years(Linux Mint-14 and Linux mint-17).I came across Red hat certification and decided to take RHCSA.I enquired some of the training centres ,they said that I need to get training from authorised training centres to take an exam.Is it true?
and Many people said that CentOs is an alternative to RedHat Os.IS it true?shall i use CentOs for studying.
CentOs or RedHatOs I have enough space in my laptop,shall I install in partition or to use in Virtual Machine .because my laptop does not support virtualization.(Intel B960 Processor)

and last but not least congrats for Certification and whats your future plan?

HARIRAM

Freshers has always difficulty in finding the Job. I will suggest to seat on campus placements and crack them. Or you can also join some small companies to start.

November 29, 2014

Shashikant S Jain

Hello Pawan,

Happy to meet you and know your success. Please reply to my personal mail, now busy in exam prep for RHCSA and RHCE may be the last quarter for RHEL6. Like to share with you about my experience after exam. Be Healthy and have Happy time, good luck for future career.

Warm Regards

Shashikant S. Jain
+91-9422793321

November 24, 2014

sachin

Hello Pawan.
First of all thanks for helping the people with the queries they have. My question is to you is I have got trained for rhel 2 way back in 2004, and have the experience of 10 years working in Linux senior system admin and now I am the team lead handling,mentoring my team of 10.
Do I really need to go for the Rhce certification?

Thanks Sachin for appreciating me. If you are already working in Linux for 10 years and handling team, then getting RCHE certification will be very easy for you as you already know LINUX very well.

If your job demand certification then you should really go for RCHE certification else after 10 years no need. If you really want to do certification then you go for some other technologies like Cluster, Virtualization etc.

November 23, 2014

RABBANI

i am a second year I.T student (B.E) can i too prepare for this certification as i have never worked on a linux system and get the certification after preparing and training..will it help me in the placement process???

Any one can prepare for Redhat certification. The trainer will give you lab to practice and you can setup lab at your place too. Certifications are added advantage so it’s up to you to do it or not.

November 23, 2014

Harshitha

Hi,
I am a 6 month experienced working as sys admin, i want to finish rhcsa. I want to do self study.

Can you suggest me which s better self study with the above books you have mentioned or a institute training ? and which one should i opt rhel 6 or 7 and in case if m going for rhel 7 will i be able to get the study materials? as it is just released?

All books are good. You can refer any one. My favorite is Hands-on Guide to the Red Hat® Exams by Damian Tommasino.

If you can do self study then no need to join any institute. But if you are not able to give time at home prefer going to institute. If Red hat has started taking exam for 7, then there must be study material too.

October 28, 2014

HARIRAM

harshitha as of my view you can go with rhel 7 because every comments you can get in double pressing the tab key itself. commands are vastly changed comparing rhel 6 to 7. The RHCSA syllabus same for 7. While in RHCE If your well practiced in samba, apache, ISCSI and new terminology about the basic queries also there in rhel 7 i.e. mariadb. so no worries you go with rhce 7. if you are working with ldap in exam dont forget to isolate the graphical to graphical.target. because the package authconfig itself changed to graphical. to know more just put me a rply i just completed my rhce 7 in my first attempt itself.. few weeks back… so no probes. all d best hope good happen for yu 🙂

November 28, 2014

irfan shaikh

hii. Sir
if my rhca certificate expires after 3 yrs.it is neccessery to do certification again for continue my job???

lem

You just need to know how to work on KVM. because you will have to give exam on KVM only.

October 27, 2014

SP

Hey Pawan

This is not a question on red hat certifications.It is a general career advice and I hope you will help me with this.

I am a fresher who has done b.tech and just got a job as a technical support in AT&T process.Company requirements for this job were unix and sql,so my interview went well. After working there I found no unix n sql usage much, in this thing we just deal with tickets.I just want to know that, is this job has a good future scope for me? Does this experience counts when I will want to switch to another company?

Its up to you how you can cash that experience. Try to work on UNIX operating system in your company. If you are not able to work, you can switch the company if you really have interest on LINUX.

October 27, 2014

Jatin sh

Hi Pawan,
I went one of institute in pune regards to coaching for RHCSA and RHCE. they given me broucher and explain everything. they advised me first I join D2CA(diploma in data center administrator) in this training first I shall get basic + administrator+shell scripting training .after these training I will work on oracle fundamental and system monitoring project.(completion of this training I shall get 6 months project experience certificate) using this certificate I can apply to organization then no need to give red hat exam

as per my understanding all above course(D2CA) are covering in RHCSA.

Could you please assist me whether I can go either for D2CA or RHCSA/RHCSE directly.

jatin sharma

Pawan,
Ok thanks for your feedback i will check with some another institute.
one more thing ……
I am from programmer analyst background now i am turning my career towards to rhce is it really helpful for me in future for growth and financially wise

October 19, 2014

kamalk

hi Pawan Bahuguna,

First of all i appreciate u for giving valuable suggestions to all!!!
iam going to take exam in couple of days pls help me in below issues

1.we need to disable NetworkManager in RHCSA 6?? ????????
#service NetworkManager stop
#chkconfig NetworkManager off
2.CAN WE DISABLE FIREWALL???? in both RHCSA & RHCE????
3.is it necessry to use iptables commands in RHCSA.